North Korea readying for war? Pyongyang simulates tactical nuke strike

Seoul: North Korea fired a missile “tipped with a test warhead simulating nuclear payload” as part of what Pyongyang described as its readiness to respond to any “reckless moves" and a response to ongoing U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un oversaw a drill simulating a tactical nuclear attack, state media said Monday. It was its fifth missile demonstration this month to protest the largest joint military exercises in years conducted by Seoul and Washington. “It is impossible to practically deter war with the mere fact that our country possesses nuclear weapons,” state-run news agency KCNA quoted North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as saying on Sunday. “It is only when the North is fully equipped with a nuclear attack posture that it can carry out its important strategic mission of deterring war,” he said. The launch marked North Korea’s fourth “warning shot” in the past week. A US B-1B strategic bomber returned to the peninsula on Sunday, making a “show of force against North Korea,” according to South Korea’s Yonhap News. The North’s leader Kim Jong Un instructed his military to hold more drills to sharpen the war readiness of his nuclear forces in the face of “aggression” by his enemies, state media reported. Those capabilities were put to the test in “various hypothetical emergency situations, the agency said, adding that the order of action to quickly move on to a nuclear attack while inspecting the accuracy of nuclear attack order and reception procedures, nuclear weapon handling order and operation procedures in accordance with different nuclear attack plans from a strict safety standpoint. The ballistic missile was equipped with a mock nuclear warhead and was launched from Pyongan Province. It allegedly travelled 800 kilometres before being “accurately” detonated 800 meters above its target off the peninsula’s eastern coast. According to reports, the launch was the final step of a two-day drill that also involved nuclear command and control exercises and training military units to switch more quickly into nuclear counterattack posture, properly handle nuclear weapons systems and execute attack plans. The exercise was also a “stronger warning” to the United States and South Korea, who are “undisguised in their explicit attempt to unleash a war” against the North, KCNA said. Laying out unspecified “strategic tasks” for further developing his nuclear forces and improving their war readiness, Kim said that his enemies are getting “ever more pronounced in their moves for aggression, KCNA said.

Jeon Ha Gyu, spokesperson of South Korea’s Defense Ministry, said it’s clear North Korea with its ramped-up testing activity is making “considerable progress” in nuclear weapons technology. He did not provide a specific assessment of the North’s claim about the successful warhead detonation.

North Korean photos indicated the latest launch was of a solid-fuel missile apparently modelled after Russia’s Iskander mobile ballistic system that the North has been testing since 2019. The missiles are built to travel at low altitudes and be manoeuvrable in flight, which theoretically improves their chances of evading South Korean missile defences.

North Korea likely has dozens of nuclear warheads, but there are differing assessments on how far the North has advanced in miniaturizing and engineering those weapons so that they could fit on the newer weapons it tested in recent years. The North so far in 2023 has fired around 20 missiles over nine different launch events. They included short-range missiles fired from land, cruise missiles launched from a submarine, and two different intercontinental ballistic missiles fired at an airport near Pyongyang as it tries to demonstrate a dual ability to conduct nuclear attacks on South Korea and the U.S. mainland. With inputs from agencies. Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.